Field to Finish ACAD C3D

We use it but someone else in the company set it up.?ÿ Its not perfect but its close.?ÿ For example all your symbols will come in, such as power poles and such, line work will come in, and all this will come in on the correct layers and line types will all be correct.?ÿ You can get pretty elaborate also, for example a manhole symbol will come in and label it with the top of manhole elevation and leave blank spots for the inverts you can add later if you do measure downs.?ÿ I will just add it will be a very steep learning curve to go from land development to civil 3d.?ÿ Not impossible but the first few days will be difficult. ?ÿ

Speaking as your competitor in business I hope that you will continue without using F2f. That works for me.

Speaking as a brother surveyor I recommend that you get into it by whatever means are at your disposal. There is F2f in LDD2009. A really poor version. But even that is better than no F2f at all. The F2f in C3d (post 2011) is much better. Yet far from perfect. I think that Carlson's version is better.?ÿ But I use the C3d version. I would not think of doing topos without F2f.?ÿ ?ÿ

The number 1 reason for using F2f is quality control. Speed is a secondary benefit, and that comes only with continued practice and system development.?ÿ?ÿ

Field to finish as Norman says is available in LDD, heck I was doing it in Autocad 12, but not to the level that the newer versions allow.?ÿ

You may find that small topo's and such are not faster than doing what you are doing now, it really makes a difference with more complex drawings. Finding someone to set you up may be the secret, and depending on how your work flow is will determine your coding structure. We work with engineers that use microstation and are DOT dependent, so our codes follow the DOT format even though it isn't necessary all the time, it's just easier to learn one set of codes. I personally liked the number codes that I started with in the 80's.

"Field to finish" is a misnomer. To truly go from field to finish would be cost prohibitive in terms of the amount of field time it would take to get the data collection and coding perfect. As Norman said, quality control is the primary benefit. There will be fewer drafting errors with a good F2F system. There will always be office editing needed, but far less than when using a connect-the-dots-in-the-office approach.

The line work can also be used for break lines.?ÿ It makes drawing the contours much easier.?ÿ It all takes a little extra time in the field and you have to be really on top of it with the field work or you have lines going all over the place.

There will always be office editing needed, but far less than when using a connect-the-dots-in-the-office approach.

Prior to implementing a F2F strategy -- and I was late to the game, only getting going with it in 2009 -- there were lots of times the only way to make sense of complicated point groups was to draw a sketch (time-consuming) or return to the site with a draft of the map (even more time-consuming).?ÿ There are still occasions when I need a sketch, but F2F has eliminated most of that.

I agree with Jim, the linework is even more important when something is complicated.?ÿ If you have a fairly straight edge of pavement, you can connect the dots in the office pretty quickly, but when the draftsman doesn't have a clue how points should be connected that's when the linework coming in automatically save a lot of time.

Our field crew takes lots of photos on site, and download them along with the raw data from a topo. The photos come in very handy for editing the more confusing linework. They also help sometimes if the crew forgets - or appears to have forgotten - a change of rod height. "Oh, there really is a 3' depression in the middle of that patio!"

Some tips.

Make a list of points with the codes to import and test.?ÿ For line codes, double it up.

I like to group my points by layer with 4 categories:
TOPO - anything on the ground
LOC - anything not on the ground - bad elevs and benchmarks
TRAV - and control
CK - check points (rarely used with LS, but still available)

I doubled all my TOPO codes with a NE suffix - so EB for edge of brush falls on the TOPO layer, EBNE falls on the LOC layer.?ÿ I have not cared for the Carlson special code [space] NE as I do too much work near Elev Zero and can't always ignore 0 elevations.

I use Carlson and you can open the FLD file in excel using | as a delimeter.?ÿ There should be no , in the whole thing, so save the Excel to CSV and replace all , with |.

BTW, my codes transitioned to Carlson Point Cloud very well.

Have fun and good luck.

using | as a delimeter

I also use the pipe symbol (|) as a special character, in two ways:

1.?ÿ As the first character of a point description to designate a shot that's not to be included in the DTM, and

2.?ÿ As the first character of a comment relating to the shot(s) before it, e.g. when I forget to change a rod height.?ÿ This makes it easy to edit the RW5 file to fix my goofs before processing the raw data.

The pipe symbol is easy to access on my data collector keyboard, and isn't typically used for anything else in the process.

You will begin by having or hiring a tech or assign an onhouse person with more qualified company filing systems to setup the f2f for your company's needs.

Personally , I simply want my different locations to be given appropriate symbols according to description and assigned different layers according to purpose and distinction such as monument, fence, water, sewer, existing utilities, road location and I will add as I go and fillin final drawing layers as they are created.

Most programs will begin with over 200 layers that you will have to learn, adopt, weed out or change.

Then you will have to teach the field crew how to use certain entries for it to be the way you want.

good luck

Our base drawing has 615 layers, which is too many in my opinion but I deal with it.

Posted by: David Livingstone

Our base drawing has 615 layers, which is too many in my opinion but I deal with it.

I've got 221. And about a dozen layer filters.

Posted by: Norman Oklahoma

I've got 221. And about a dozen layer filters.

^most helpful!